I liked the first joke better.
"The form this joke takes"? How different can two jokes be and be the same joke? Maybe we can Theseus's ship this all the way into a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walking into a bar.
Huh. The first time I heard this joke it was told by a Mexican professor and involved the Mexican police, an elephant, and a mouse. Unfortunately the professor vastly overestimated both the class's Spanish-language skills (we were an advanced class, so he wasn't crazy) and our comfort level with jokes that take as a given a serious level of police brutality.
Still, it was one of the more practical cultural snippets of my undergraduate experience.
How different can two jokes be and be the same joke
They aren't the same joke. One joke is about police brutality, and the other is about a guy who doesn't like his wife. Just because the raconteur chose the Chicago PD as the protagonist doesn't make it the same joke.
and the other is about a guy who doesn't like his wife.
I will dispute this. The only evidence at hand implies that the Chicago cop had a stronger sense of duty and acceptance of authority than the other two.
That all three were told to shoot the person in the room and that all three then went into the room implies that the person giving the order had the authority to do so.
Now the cop was told to "shoot" the victim, so perhaps he exceeded his authority by strangling her.
OT: Was it parsimon who was talking about the "Citation please" culture of arguing on the Internet a few months ago?
Textbook case going on now in Yglesias's comment thread, reminding me of why I don't like to read them.
I've only heard the first joke about the LAPD -- didn't know the Chicago cops had a particularly bad reputation. And I agree that the two jokes are entirely distinct.
All cops outside of Mayberry can be made the butts of these types of jokes. I am too lazy to research, but pick a PD over a certain size and you will be guaranteed to have some claims of "brutality".
I like the second joke. And it suits Chicago cops, whose culture of entitlement-to-corruption-and-brutality doesn't look to have changed much from the old "vote-Wallace" days, to judge by that comments thread at Neb's second link.
I heard the first joke about a CIA man, a KGB man and a Mossad agent. Only the first two agents go out and catch their rabbits in short order, and have to go out and find the Mossad agent when he's gone for five hours. They come across him beating a donkey and shouting "Admit it! Admit it! Admit you are the rabbit!" Funnier version of the joke, I think.
This joke and thread can really reward analysis.
That 4 assumes misogyny without evidence rather than obedience is interesting.
Would it be different if we did not use (a supposed) privileged group in the set-up? Three Bagram prisoners are told to go into a room...yes it would.
I've only heard the first joke about the LAPD
I think that the LAPD has always had a bad reputation except in the mind of Jack Webb. Of course, they patrol seven zillion square miles with about one third the officers of NYPD. Bustin' heads was a way to spread the thin blue line as much as possible.
That 4 assumes misogyny without evidence rather than obedience is interesting.
Take my wife, please.
Don't overthink it, bob. It's a joke.
I'm with Camp Two Distinct Jokes.
Furthermore, the second is clearly a variation on the joke that won the "funniest joke in the world" quasi-scientific study, except the setting was a hunting trip.
(Hunter gets hurt, buddy calls 911, operator says "Ok. First, make sure he's dead."
He says, "Ok, one sec."
Then she hears a shot, and he gets back on the line and says, "He's definitely dead. Now what?")
The world's funniest joke is not translatable and thus cannot be designated as so in a transnational study. And its punch line is the word "Fünf".
Heebie's joke makes it clear that bob is right that the second joke is about blind obedience to authority. But its definitely a different joke. The third fellow's eagerness to off his wife is not a part.
Which reminds me of the story with the opposite result, in which a snakebite victim, his friend and a 911 call all play a part. The friend's omission of the pertinent information relayed by the authority figure is the source of the humor. As you are all aware.
Here's a pair of variations that I think are interesting. In both versions, Ethnicities A and B are fillers. In the first version, Ethnicity C is a Polack, in the second version a Jew.
Three ethnic people are captured by cannibals, who say "We will cook your brains, eat your flesh, and make canoes out of your skin! But we're not total monsters. You can choose how you want to die."
So Ethnic Chap A throws himself on a sword, saying "Viva my country!"
Ethnic Dude B puts a bullet in his brain, saying "All hail my head leader person!"
Ethnic Butt of Joke C says he wants a fork. The cannibals suspiciously give him one. Then he starts to stab himself all over, saying "Fuck your canoes!!!"
If Ethnicity C is stereotyped as crafty, then he's getting the last laugh. If Ethnicity C is stereotyped as stupid, then jokes on him! You're still dead, buddy!
I've heard 16 with C as a New Yorker, with the punchline delivered in a "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" NYC accent.
I don't think 16 works with C being a stupid ethnicity. It sounds more like it should be an ethnicity noted for pointless grudges. Like Albanians or something.
I don't get the joke in 13. Why is that funny?
I've heard 16 with C as a New Yorker from LizardBreath.
17: I've told that joke about New Yorkers - the punchline is "So much for ya gah-dam canoe." I don't think the stereotype is stupid or crafty -- it's willful, contrary, and belligerent.
21: Were you lurking that long ago, or are you just fulfilling your duty of R-ing TFA?
do jokes offend because of what they mean or what they will cause?
22: Crafty or stupid? Probably both, depending on situational context.
Pwned on my own joke. Ritual suicide is my only option.
Someone pass me a fork.
willful, contrary, and belligerent.
That's what I said, noted for pointless grudges.
The joke is on p 85 of Cohen's book Jokes, but google books doesn't have preview for it. It is, however, viewable on Amazon (and in his telling it's FBI and ATF).
"The form this joke takes"? How different can two jokes be and be the same joke?
Different, but not too different.
Different, but not too different.
Nosflow the Formalist
to take this gun (here it is) into that room (over there) and shoot the person inside
person s/b abalone
It sounds more like it should be an ethnicity noted for pointless grudges. Like Albanians or something. Megan.
31 - When will this horrible stereotyping of abalone end??
It's impossible to tell the same joke twice, you know.
Ever since Heraclitus stopped taking opion he's become much less interesting.
The next time you eat uno pion, it is not the same subatomic particle, and you are not the same man.
I keep trying to eat pions, but the damned things decay before I get them into my mouth.
My grudges aren't pointless at the beginning, essear. And then, years later, some of us have remained constant and others of us, of weaker constitutions perhaps, were distracted by shiny objects.
Cohen's book on jokes was a free download from University of Chicago Press a few months ago. I've been not reading it ever since.
I'm trying to guess who "Cohen" is in 40 and all I can come up with is Leonard.
I've been not reading War and Peace for the past 5 years.
Anyway, is Cohen's book worth reading? Pages 84-86 suggest that it is not, but since page 86 is the last page before the back matter, it's not like it would take long to read. Also, Adobe Digital Editions is pretty crappy.
It is worth reading for the jokes if for no other reason.
Right now I'm not reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I bought today, but sadly forgot to bring home from the office.
Blandings's knowledge of the archives is admirable for a relatively new commenter.
50: Bave's knownledge of comment 24 of this thread? Not so much. I agree, Bave. Good on Blandings.
And for spelling a word wrong JUST FOR YOU!
"so much for your canoe" -- well, spite is a useful game strategy for a recognizable group. (I think it's been admitted in wasps, and there are a few wild hairs claiming we have evidence in microbes.)
we have evidence in microbes
Found out!
Different, but not too different.
I'm back.
Subtracting the detail and analyzing the two 'C's in the jokes in the way of their actions, are both misunderstanding the intent of what they are commanded to do. Yet the first group is "cheating" with the fake pink bunny. Or are they? In any case, the third cop..wtf is the purpose of the 2nd story? To see if law enforcement officials will shoot their wives?
Point:within the world of the joke, although it is not clear, does the Chicago Cop see the other two leave the room? Their disgust would affect his reaction upon entering the room.
Many, many things are clearer to me now that I learn that bob isn't aware of the concept of "humor".
The 2nd joke is also in Edward Conlon's "Blue Blood", where it's CIA, FBI and Bronx Homicide with a bunny for bait and a bear for the non-bunny.
spite is a useful game strategy for a recognizable group. (I think it's been admitted in wasps
WASPs aren't spiteful, they're generous and inclusive.
I am not only aware, I demonstrate it in most of my comments. For example:
I do so have a sense of humour. I do!
Well, I thought it was funny.
Up was magnificent Sunday night. Yes, of course the first 10 minutes made me cry. But the central symbol/allegory/metaphor of dragging the buoyant house around was at a level of Sisyphus or Tantalus, and astonished me in its depth and resonance.
Vicious stereotypes of dogs did not decrease my wonder.
So the house in (act 2) Up represents the past, adventure, adventure deferred, grief, whatever. It's that best of all things a symbol.
And thus "Grief rises, and lifts" ???
This also makes me cry.
There is something very strange going on at the link in 59. I don't know what kind of table that guy thinks he's running, but the argument as laid out in the essay makes little to no sense.
Why did the Protestant elite open its institutions to all comers? The answer can be traced in large part to the anti-aristocratic ideals of the Constitution, which banned titles of nobility and thus encouraged success based on merit.
Yes, I'm quite sure that Princeton admitted Jews in the 1970s because the Constitution said Lord Mainwaring couldn't hand down his title. What?
Money certainly granted entrée into governing circles, but education was probably more important to the way the Protestant elite defined itself, which is why the opening of the great American universities has had such an epochal effect in changing the demographics of American elites.
Before, you had to be rich, but afterward you only had to be expensively educated. Fairness!
Another key source was the ideal of fair play, imported from the ideology of the English public schools, but practiced far more widely in the United States than in the class-ridden mother country.
I'll grant you that the concept has a powerful hold on the American imagination.
Together, these social beliefs in equality undercut the impulse toward exclusive privilege that every successful group indulges on occasion.
Indulges! Yes, bigotry is rather adorable, isn't it?
A handful of exceptions for admission to societies, clubs and colleges -- trivial in and of themselves -- helped break down barriers more broadly.
This, actually, is the truth. When conservatives shriek that just one puts us on the slippery slope, history says they're often right. Hooray for slip'n'slide.
This was not just a case of an elite looking outside itself for rejuvenation: the inclusiveness of the last 50 years has been the product of sincerely held ideals put into action.
Oh my word - in the second half of the sentence - can it be...an actual argument?
Nah.
We wouldn't have this stupid NYTimes article if we only had a way of forbidding mourning valedictions.
Are you from Chicago? Because apparently killing things is pretty much local color there.
"The policeman is not there to create disorder.
The policman is there to preserve disorder."
Hizzoner Da Mare Richard M. Daly
in the wake of the 1968 police riot
outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
I think your limerick needs a little work.
67 reminds me that I recently saw a guy (for whom English seemed a fairly recent second language) get kicked out of the very crowded Apple store for using extreme language that I think he may have just learned. He was trying to get a free thing that came with another thing without being able to prove he bought the other thing and started saying, "This fucking guy! This fucking guy won't give me! What the fuck?" Suddenly, the cashier asked him to leave or he would be escorted out by security, and five guys surrounded him to back him up. The guy seemed pretty surprised at the reaction.
The author of the piece linked in 59 (which I haven't read) sounds like he believes that Pleasantville accurately represented, in spirit, the events of the civil rights era.
The piece linked in 59 is just yer standard whiggish view of history, in which past injustices were just something we grew out of as an excuse to not do anything about present injustices, as I would've said at EotW if it had let me comment there. Any and all progress is to be credited only to the magnanimity of the elite to grant their lessers more rights.
The link in 59 has been and is being discussed at Unfogged 2.0.
Shorter Bob: " Your levity is good, it relieves tension and the fear of death"
The world's funniest joke is not translatable and thus cannot be designated as so in a transnational study. And its punch line is the word "Fünf".
That joke also loses something when written down rather than delivered orally.
||
Not to belabor the Weigel incident but it did produce this comedy gold from Michael "Axis of Evil" Gerson: The Grown-Up Party, in my experience, is more like a seminar at the Aspen Institute--presentation by David Broder, responses from E.J. Dionne Jr. and David Brooks--on the electoral implications of the energy debate.
|>
The link in 67 reminds me of my favorite chinese word: zaogao! It means either "really bad", or just a general exclamation of dismay. But the best part is that it means "pickle cake", as in, "Pickle cake! I've missed the bus!"
I decided the first joke in the OP is a simple language joke, like heebie's in 13. "But that is not what they meant by 'pink bunny!'"
The 2nd is more complicated.
76: For a moment I was surprised that Gerson said that: I couldn't believe someone would think that was a good thing.
Gerson was also supposedly the "smoking gun may be mushroom cloud" originator, so I just love getting lectured by him about morals'n'at.
The problem with the joke in the OP is that squirrels can't talk!
20: What about Polish Jews?
What about Polish Cannibals?
Cannibal 1 drew an 'X' on the skin on the back of Ethnic Dude C, and Cannibal 2 said, "You idiot, what if we get a different boat next time?"
Trolling is a form of joking, yes.
I think people should stop using the phrase "the whiggish view of history" because I have no idea what it means and have read explanations for it several times. Maybe to historians and political scientists "whig" means something in theoretical terms but to me it's just a political party that no longer exists. The fact that "Whig" is supposed to be the opposite of "Tory", and yet "Whig" is one of the most royalist-sounding and aristocratic-sounding words imaginable, confuses me.
Wikipedia seems pretty clear: Whig history is an interpretation of history that shows everything improving inevitably until we reach our current, presumably ideal, state of affairs. Anything bad that happened in the past was necessary at that time, but we're better now so it couldn't possibly happen again.
85:Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states of native strength possessed,
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
If to the city sped what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share; 310
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display,
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
bob's general view of life hasn't changed, I see, even if he is expressing it in heroic couplets.
The problem with the joke in the OP is that squirrels can't talk!
They can laugh, though. Oh, how they laugh.
I think the study of the Whigs is very helpful for providing distance and perspective from an ideology that has triumphed in the West to an extent that we can barely see it, or if noticed, is assigned to the likes of Sarah Palin and thus unfairly dismissed. An understanding of Whig vs Tory helps me understand the populists vs progressives of late 19th century America, for instance, or the Haymarket strikers attitudes toward the ownership of their jobs.
Current "Tories" have obviously picked mere pieces from an older coherent philosophy and have made a mess. We are all Whigs now.
LB: I'm no political scientist/historian, but I wasn't under the impression that Whiggism necessarily meant that the current state of affairs was optimal - that's Leibnizism, surely. It's just that now is better than the past, and the course of history is of steady improvement (so things will be even better in future). When it's used derogatorily, the implication is that Whigs believe(d) there is no backsliding, but I'm not sure that's accurate. When it's not used derogatorily (which is rare), all that's usually meant is an opposition to the Tory idea that we've fallen from some Golden Age.
93: I've never seen it used other than pejoratively, and so not giving Whig historians any credit for realism -- IME, it's an accusation of Panglossian naivete. There's probably respectable history that could be characterized as Whiggish, but I've never seen that usage.
says he wants a fork.
Alternate Jewish version: ...says to the cannibals, "What are your costs here? I can get you canoes wholesale."
93:Are these my only choices, progress or Golden Age?
Is "something gained, something lost" an unavailable assessment?
I always assumed it was the tendency being parodied in 1066 And All That, of declaring that people and events were Good Things or Bad Things depending on whether or not they contributed to the arrival of some desired present state of affairs. (Note that one could be both a Bad Man and a Good Thing or vice versa. Or, indeed, as in the Civil War, Wrong but Wromantic or Right but Repulsive.)
I don't think it has a clear implication of Panglossianism. It's the idea that history is a linear story of progress -- it leaves open the possibility that the future could be even better than the present.
See, nobody knows what it is.
I'll assume it means "Panglossian" from now on.
It definitely doesn't mean the Panglossian thing [dammit], it is the idea of history as progress described in 93. Usually with the tendency to interpret all past events in terms of their causal relationship with the present qua progress.
Panglossian was the wrong word to use -- I meant a naive belief that the present day, and the present day in the historian's home country particularly, was the height of civilization: better in all respects than things had ever been before or were anywhere else. Not that there was no hope of them ever getting still. And then a belief that all of history was somehow directed toward arriving at that state of affairs.
Reducing it to Panglossian is a terrible misreading. The history of civil rights in the US is usually organized in a Whiggish manner, for example, without the implication that the US is at the very possible theoretical peak of civil rights perfection.
101: I'd be happy with that description. As for pejorative or not, I'd certainly agree that it's almost always used pejoratively these days - 20th century horrors like the Holocaust make that inevitable - but like I say it does sometimes get used favourably in a comparison with reactionary Toryism.
Isn't Whig history also associated with tracing back representative government to ancient origins, like the Magna Carta?
The Magna Carta isn't ancient by British standards. It certainly wasn't for the Whigs.
The Magna Carta isn't ancient by British standards
Consider me sticking my tongue out in your general direction. 1215 is a long time ago.
The reaction to late 19th century whiggery took a variety of forms:relativism, Orientalism, romanticization of the primitive, etc.
But we also had a large group of thinkers, not exactly reactionaries who tried for an objective detached scientific analysis:Weber, Durkheim, Veblen, Pareto, the true pessimists like Ortega y Gaset, Mosca, Miller.
They looked for the downsides to modernism and progress.
"Neither Whig nor Tory" is a project, a discipline, a hygiene as Nietzsche might say.
It works like this:
On balance feminism is a very good thing, and I am for it. But it is a radical change, and something good, something truly valuable, something neither repulsive like the patriarchy or trivial like chivalry, something necessary to human flourishing...is going to be inevitably lost to a successful feminism. So, what are we sacrificing?
If this question offends you, if it must be wrong, then you are in full bore whiggery, only escaping Panglossianism by admitting, even enjoying the fact that we haven't reached social perfection...yet. But we will get ther, huh?
Not really that much different than those who though the British Empire was the apex of human existence.
From the wikipedia link: The abstract noun Whiggishness is sometimes used as a generic term for Whig history. It should not be confused with Whiggism as a political ideology, and has no direct relation to either the British or American Whig parties. Interesting; I'd always been confused by the term too.
I think I've heard the term "Whiggishness" used as a pejorative, but I suspect (memory of any specific passage failing me) that it was being used by some Tory-leaning character in some English novel. I'd certainly expect a Brit to have a more nuanced understanding.
108- For maximum trolling, why not substitute civil rights for feminism?
108, 110: The glory that was the Underground Railroad? Gone with slavery.
If this question offends you, if it must be wrong, then you are in full bore whiggery, probably female, and whatever the fuck was so swell wasn't doing you any good anyway.
"There may be kinks and quirks in our project, but these are merely residual, remnants of the mistaken past. There is nothing intrinsic to our project that can be in any way negative or harmful, because we and our project are good."
One of the criticism of early Whiggery was that it created an ungrounded tribalism, a free floating conditional association of interests without loyalties or responsibilities.
Bob contains multitudes: He is Saint-Just one day, Amitai Etzioni the next.
Well, now I am getting my rain in from the Gulf, thanks to that fucker Alex. Checking, it isn't orange or green or rainbow colored, but it is the invisible stuff that puts the holes in your brain and makes your skin rot off.
Oh well, If I am be dissolved by toxic waste, at least I have a lot of company.
I hate company.
Have you tried protecting yourself with an aluminum foil hat, Bob? I hear they're good for that.
re: 105/106
I've handled a Magna Carta at work.* It's not the oldest thing I've seen, by far, nor the oldest British thing, but it was still a bit of a thrill.
* when one came up for sale a year or two back, the auctioneers (I think) wanted photographs of some of the other extant copies from the same 'generation' of Magna Cartae [iirc it was a 1217 edition].
108On balance feminism is a very good thing, and I am for it. But it is a radical change, and something good, something truly valuable, something neither repulsive like the patriarchy or trivial like chivalry, something necessary to human flourishing...is going to be inevitably lost to a successful feminism. So, what are we sacrificing?
Bob, would you be willing to take a stab at answering the final question there? It's framed vaguely as though it's a rhetorical question, but I don't know the answer.
Insert a colon in the appropriate place in 119; my only defense is that I was on hold with the cable company, because we are receiving all of 1 (one) television channel of a sudden, so I am (a) distracted, and (b) ready to argue with Bob about feminism, apparently.
119:No, thank you, I ain't goin all Mont-St Michel and Charters around here
Labor Pains ...IOZ
I'll think on it.
"Don't know what you got til its gone" and really your conciousness and values change so comprehensively that you don't recognize what you've lost if it is pointed out to you.
Like wage-labor. On one side of it serfdom and slavery, on the other side who knows what, and so we can barely think about wage labour actually is. Economics is easy, fucking Marxism is really hard. And an entire culture and civilization devotes a good chunk of its resources to justifying, rationalizing, disguising the existing paradigms.
But this is the kind of stuff that is really liberating to examine and resist.
No, thank you, I ain't goin all Mont-St Michel and Charters around here
Huh? And, Chartres. I've only read about a third of that book.
you don't recognize what you've lost if it is pointed out to you.
bob, this is annoying. Point it out to me first, then I'll tell you whether I recognize it.
Parsimon, what do you hope to gain from this?
123:Does she needs your help, nosflow?
123: I thought I might get bob to answer in a substantive manner. Because it really is quite annoying to read something like the portion of 108 I quoted, ask for an elaboration, and get nothing.
Yes, okay, I'll get over it. I'm clearly querulous.
Herbert Butterfield is rolling in his grave. (No, I haven't read him either.)
Easy. When you get successful feminism you lose visible nipples in the office.
If we turn our present into an absolute to which all other generations are merely relative, we are in any case losing the truer vision of ourselves which history is able to give; we fail to realize those things in which we too are merely relative, and we lose a chance of discovering where, in the stream of the centuries, we ourselves, and our ideas and prejudices, stand. In other words we fail to see how we ourselves are, in our turn, not quite autonomous or unconditioned, but a part of the great historical process; not pioneers merely, but also passengers in the movement of things.
But the book is still in copyright after 78 years, and it would be very wrong to download from that link, depriving Butterfield's great-grandchildren of their well-earned royalties.